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Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Zen and the art of Motorcycle packing

The night before a long tour on a motorbike is always frantic: fitting all your rain gear (and God knows I will need it), your t-shirts; deciding what to ditch, keeping your finger crossed that you will not need it. In my case this is even more challenging, because I need to leave empty space for the local food/staples I plan on buying while on the road...I know, I am crazy. Especially because the saddle bags I have on the bike aren't big.

My bike and its tiny saddlebags - I will have an additional bag on the pillion seat, though.

As I had mentioned a few weeks ago, tomorrow I will leave for 4 days of an intense motorcycling and culinary tour of Lake Michigan. The list of the food I need to try is long (fish fry, frozen custard, pasties, Michigan's peaches) and the miles are aplenty (approximately 1000, i.e. 1600km).

I have slightly changed the route that I had indicated in my previous post: since I have already recently been in Door County, I will skip that. And although I will still reach Lake Superior for exploring the Pictured Rocks National Seashore, I will then go back directly to Lake Michigan. This will shorten by total trip of around 120 miles (200km). Even so, I will have to ride every day between 4-5 hours. Unfortunately the weather forecasts indicate that the rain will be my companion Friday and Saturday. Not fun.

The rain puts an extra struggle on packing, because you have to factor in the risk (i.e. the 100% certitude) that you will be soaked wet by the end of the day, so you will need more clothes. As anyone who has ever traveled on a motorcycle knows, the real trick is to reduce to the minimum your pack. But there is a bare minimum below which I don't think one should go. For instance, I like to change my underwear at least once a day (I know, this could be TMI).

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You always hear about American people going to Tuscany and falling in love with Tuscan food, right? Well I am the "other" guy: I am the Tuscan guy who came to the US and fell in love with American food.

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